


Letters, the Writing Of

by earlgreytea68



Series: Letters [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 06:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While he's dead, Sherlock writes John letters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters, the Writing Of

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Listy - pisanie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902816) by [KittensAndRage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittensAndRage/pseuds/KittensAndRage)



> I know that you're probably expecting some teenage antics but it's a holiday week here in the States so things are a bit discombobulated. We will shortly return to your regularly scheduled schoolboy shenanigans.
> 
> This was the sort of fic that writes itself when you're not looking. I have no idea where it came from, just that it sprang forth fully formed without my even realizing it, and here it is. I warn you, it is VERY angsty, straight through to the end, and that is not at all like me, and I confess that the more I think about this fic, the more I think that it's just a prologue, and that I have much more to tell about the Sherlock Holmes who wrote these letters and the John Watson he wrote them to. I just haven't the energy right now to dive into it, but I sense it's coming, very soon.
> 
> It's sort of an odd thing to post on Thanksgiving, but I can use it as an excuse to say: I give thanks for all of *you.* Genuinely. You have all been wonderful and interesting to get to know (whether you are a years-old familiar name or a brand new one), and each comment you leave brings me great delight and joy. Seriously, thank you. For those of you, like me, celebrating a day of gratitude today, I wish you a lovely holiday. And for all of you, I wish much happiness to you and your loved ones.
> 
> An additional heartfelt thank-you to flawedamythyst, who kindly agreed to beta and Britpick and hence got exposed to the number of commas I scatter over fics that pour out of me the way this one did...
> 
> This fic is for my usual beta,arctacuda, who once noted that betas seldom get to be surprised by fic appearing on their beta-ee's (?) LJ. So: here you are! Surprise!
> 
> Translated into Italian here: http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=2511592
> 
> Translated into Russian here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4950730

John –

There are things I have to tell you, but you are not here to tell and I can’t get in touch with you because I’m supposed to be dead. It’s all hatefully tedious, this being dead business. 

Anyway: The experiment in the refrigerator is supposed to be turned twenty degrees anticlockwise every 14 hours. 

I can’t believe I forgot to mention that to you. 

\--SH

***

John –

I am so bloody tired of bloody speaking bloody French. I felt like I had to write a few words in English to remind myself that I could still do it. 

\--SH

***

John –

I hope there wasn’t a court case over the whole thing where you attacked the Commissioner? Haven’t seen anything in the newspapers or on the Internet but they can be unreliable. 

Hope it hasn't all been a bother. 

\--SH

***

John – 

Hacked into the Met. website. Cannot believe SD still employed. They are all idiots. 

\--SH

***

John –

Could you pass me a pen?

\--SH

Please. I always forget the please, don’t I?

***

John – 

Today I passed a trained monkey on the street, doing tricks for money. Well, the owner was making the money, of course, which seems a bit unfair but I suppose the monkey doesn't have much use for money. I thought you might have enjoyed it and made us stop to watch it. So I stopped and watched it on your behalf. It was fairly dull, certainly not as interesting as the circus we went to. It did end in a fist fight, but that was in no way, shape, or form my fault. 

\--SH

***

John –

The cost of two pints of milk in Istanbul is 74p (converted from Turkish lira).

\--SH

***

John –

This is why you used to blog, isn’t it? To get out the thoughts in your head? It never bothered me, before there was you, to have thoughts in my head. That is where thoughts belong. But now I’ve got used to sharing them with you and they won’t stay in there. 

But if that’s why you wrote a blog—never mind, I don’t understand it. There was never any need for you to write all of those thoughts down to put them on the Internet for strangers to read. You could have just said them to me. I would have listened to anything you had to say. Everything you had to say. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. Did you not know that?

\--S

***

John –

If you wanted to get a dog, you could. That would be good for you.

\--S

***

John – 

Can’t sleep. 

Anagrams of John Hamish Watson: 

Maths Ninja Whoosh  
Hashish Jam Wonton  
Hath Showman Joins  
Astonish Wham John

Is it cheating to use John in the anagram?

John Hamish Watson  
John Hamish Watson  
John

***

John –

I am desperate for a good cup of tea. No one here knows how to make tea. Actually, you are the only person I ever met who knew how to make a truly good cup of tea. Who knew I was going to miss your tea so much? John, come here immediately, I am in need of a cup of tea. 

\--S

***

John –

I take it back, come here immediately, I am in need of _you_. 

\--S

***

John –

Never mind that last letter. It’s been a long day. 

What am I saying? It’s not like you’re ever going to see these letters anyway. It’s not like I can send them to you. I should destroy every one of these and stop writing to you. This is utterly mad. 

\--S

***

John –

It’s possible I’m going mad. 

\--S

***

John –

Went on your blog. You’ve done nothing with it. That isn’t allowed. How am I supposed to keep up with all the inanities of your life without your blog? What is that last entry? I could strangle you for that. Stop whatever you are doing right now, and go and write me an entry. 

\--S

***

John – 

Still feel like I’m going mad.

\--S

***

John –

Today, I was standing in a doorway staking out the building across the way and smoking. (Look, I’m not even censoring these letters anymore, that’s how you can tell that you’re never going to see them.) As I was standing there, I noticed a man in a striped jumper crossing the street out of the corner of my eye. The man was two and a quarter inches taller than you, but his hair was the same color as your hair, that color that isn’t quite blonde and isn’t quite brown, and he had it cropped very short, the way you did when I first met you and the Army was still thick on you, there in every movement you made, until one day it wasn’t and you smiled more and you laughed and you didn’t hold yourself like you thought we might be under attack or killed at any moment. I feel terrible now that I convinced you we were safe when we weren’t. I wanted to follow that man in the striped jumper who wasn’t you and tell him sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn’t know. If I’d known, I’d never have let you relax into us. 

\--S

***

John –

Can’t sleep. 

\--S

***

John –

Went to see the new James Bond film, because I thought you would want me to. It was rubbish. I would write out all the reasons why but I am very tired at the moment and my arm is aching too much and I am going to take some fairly ineffective painkillers and fall into bed and hope to sleep, so I will just leave you with this: I thought of you, every scene. 

\--S

***

Dear John, 

I find myself in Afghanistan. I didn’t know I was going to come here. I didn’t intend to come here, but I didn’t know or intend any of the things that have happened since I jumped off the roof. Actually, I didn’t know or intend a lot of the things that happened before that, too. And now I’m in Afghanistan and I

I have never been here before. Did you know that? We never discussed it, so you never told me anything about it, and there’s a lot I can deduce but nothing really prepared me for it. The sun is unrelenting, and the air is always clogged with dust, and the noise around me is an endless squabble that I can’t make sense of. I try to think of you here, you, in your ridiculous jumpers, with your hands wrapped around a cup of tea, getting rained on by London rain, and I cannot imagine it, John. You could not have been here, not my John, some other John, maybe someone else’s John, though I try not to think of things like that, but not _mine_. There is something about this place that makes me so glad I left you in London, even the way that I had to leave you. I am so glad you are _there_ and not _here_. I don’t care for it here and I can’t imagine you did, either, and, John, my John, had I known you then, had I known you were trapped here and miserable, do you know that I would have saved you? I would save you from anything, everything, and it’s possible you don’t know that, unbelievable as that seems to me. Had you rung me, in that time before we met, and had I heard your voice from a faraway desert place, and had you said to me, “Sherlock, you don’t know me, but you will, you will know me more and better than anyone else in your life, so come and fetch me,” I would have come. Right away. 

And I think of bullets, gunshots, wounds. I can’t help it these days. I’d be thinking of them anyway, I’m surrounded by them so much. But I think of them and I think of you and I look at patches of sand and I wonder if this was the sand where your blood ran, whether this sand greedily soaked it up, John Watson’s blood, and I feel irrationally angry at the thought. I want to kick at all the sand of this country, I want to cart it out of here and leave this land as nothingness, this place where all I can smell is blood and somehow it is all yours. 

At night, when it is quieter, when I can breathe a bit better, I go outside and I sit under the sky. The sky is endless here. Stars are scattered all over it. Far more than we can see in London. I know you are frowning and thinking that astronomy is not my subject and I will not argue with you but I know what the night sky looks like, I’ve always known that, and this is not my night sky. But at one point, it was your night sky. This was what you looked up at when you couldn’t sleep. I wonder if you always had nightmares, from the fighting, or if the nightmares didn’t start until after you were shot. I wonder if you are awake in London, if the nightmares have returned now. I wonder if you sit there and look up at my night sky and think for even the span of a heartbeat of me. 

***

Dear John, 

I am so exhausted. 

\--S

***

Dear John, 

Can’t sleep. 

\--S

***

Dear John, 

Thanksgiving in America. Giving thanks that you are safe and sound in London. Hating everything else. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

I miss you. I miss the sound of your voice. I miss the sound of it sniping at me over things that don’t matter, that really never mattered, but still I wish I’d got the milk when you asked. I will bring you milk every single day, I promise. I did not realize how attached you were to milk. It was an honest mistake on my part. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you

***

Dear John,

Everything is hateful and stupid and stupid and hateful here and I hate it. I hate it. I miss London. I miss 221B. I miss our sofa. I miss our wallpaper. I miss my skull. I miss Mrs. Hudson. I miss Lestrade. I even miss Anderson. I miss the way I could only tell how blue your eyes were when I was standing right next to you. I miss the way you would smile at me like you thought I was nice. I miss the way you would laugh at me like you thought I was funny. I miss the sound of your breathing. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

Ate an apple today. It had 22 seeds. I am not sure if that is average or unusual. Must make a note to look that up. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

When we were handcuffed together and you held my hand, it turns out I thought that was very good. We didn’t get a chance to discuss it, so I’m not sure how you felt about it. I’m terrified of how you felt about it. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

Still no update to your blog. You had better still be alive. I’m going to be very cross if I get back and you’re dead and this was all for nothing. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

BORED. I have so much to do. I am bored beyond belief. Come immediately. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

Today I counted up how much money I had and calculated how much cocaine that would purchase in the city I currently find myself in. Then I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked my way through it instead. I think you would agree this was the wiser choice, so I expect you to forgive me for it. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John, 

The wind is a variable I cannot control. I need to get better at incorporating it. Do you know how many equations it takes to make a good shot? Do you even know how much mathematics you must have performed in your head to kill the cabbie? You’re never going to see this so I can say: It’s possible you’re more brilliant than I am. 

\--Sherlock

***

Dear John,

Still exhausted. Still can’t sleep. 

\--Sherlock

***

J –

The thing is that I never really thought I wasn’t coming back to you. It really never crossed my mind. I thought that I would win, of course I would win, and then we would be safe and I’d come home and you’d be angry for a few minutes but then you’d realize that I was right because I am always right and it would all be fixed. I didn’t think

It might not be 

I went through all the effort of appearing to be dead. I never actually intended to be dead. I think this is all, frankly, rubbish. But maybe I should have

I don’t understand your blogging. I don’t understand how you sat there and put words down. Did you find that satisfying? Did they capture what you wanted to say? What you wanted to say to _me_? Your _stupid blog_ still isn’t updated and I have an anonymous mobile in my hand and I just want to dial your number and hear your voice, just one more time, but I’m sitting here smoking the last cigarette I have and realizing that it wouldn’t be enough. I would have to ask you if you’d said everything you needed to say to me and it wouldn’t be enough, all these stupid words that I kept writing to you even though I know you wouldn’t see them and I don’t know why I wasted all this time writing all these useless words, why I’m still wasting all this time writing all these stupid words

I love you

I love you

I love you

I loved you from the moment I saw you, the _moment_. Don’t scoff at me, don’t you really think that, if anyone could fall in love at first sight, it would be me? I could tell so much more from a first sight than anyone else could, and _you_ were

And then you thought I was amazing, when _you_ were what was amazing, and I loved you and loved you and loved you and never told you and I was so stupid and I hate myself so much and I’m so sorry so sorry so sorry

I love you. 

I LOVE YOU

Yours,  
Sherlock

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/663154) by [hechicera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hechicera/pseuds/hechicera)
  * [Letters Cover Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012684) by [consultingpiskies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingpiskies/pseuds/consultingpiskies)
  * [[Podfic] Letters, the Writing Of](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053130) by [themusecalliope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themusecalliope/pseuds/themusecalliope)
  * [Cover: Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347247) by [January_Marlinquin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/January_Marlinquin/pseuds/January_Marlinquin)




End file.
